Presentation: While all the video settings hurt my eyes, I can agree that the style suits the mood of the game. (I recommend taking a break semi-frequently if your eyes start to burn from all the particle effects.) There is voice-acting for what few moments you view, and you'd better be able to tell accents apart, if you want a chance at solving some of the puzzles presented. Gameplay: The main mechanic of checking around moments frozen in time works well for the most part. The fact that you can't restart the audio segments without leaving and returning to the memory, and can't just leave one when you please (you need to find a "door" to exit), makes some aspects seem like padding. There are also a few members of the crew that appear to require guesswork, even after you've seen all the moments in time that you're able to access. There is also one memory where a number is replaced with a symbol is a very "this is a game" moment, but for the most part things stay true to he world. Story: Other than the one plot hole near the end, the story actually comes together quite nicely, and I found myself wide-eyed at some of the twists and turns presented. (Even with a few spoilers from video reviews of the game.)
Right now, I'd say this game ranks about a 3.5, but since GOG doesn't allow reviews to have their star-ratings changed after the fact, and the dev has actively been updating this game since launch, I'm giving it the four-stars now. What's fun: *Micro-managing Staff. You can tell them what to do first, and even if there's a specific section of the aquarium that they need to remain in. *I get a kick out of zooming the camera in so that I'm merged into the water. It's soothing to just watch your fish swim around you. (Reminds me a bit of some of the old "living" screen savers.) *There is structure to stop things from getting overwhelming too quickly, but you still have a fair amount of choice in what you want to research, and when. It allows you to build your own aquarium without having ready access to livestock and tech that would make goals in the early levels laughably easy. What could be improved: * The main features missing that would make life easier (other than fixing the abysmal loading time when you boot up the game, are related to sorting. Example: if you want to make a tank with fish over a certain size, or hot/cold water or wimp/bully fish, there is no way to filter that out. If I could select a tank and it would slowly take away any options that would conflict with any creatures within the thank, that would remove loads of frustration I have with the game. * Some sort of chart to see what skills your existing Staff have would be amazing as well. As it stands, there isn't even an easy way to quickly check each Staff member individually. There is a set amount of windows the game will let you have open at once before it stops you. So you are often forced to open one window, then close it just so you can open another. * Finally, when a fish grows, there is no way to zoom to its tank. I've lost count of the times I had a growth report, thought I'd ensured nothing was at risk of getting eaten only for an Autopsy Report to appear a minute later.
The game, when in focus, is lovely, but in most areas you'll have several layers out of focus. This happened so often that my eyes were burning through most of the game. Add to that a soundtrack that just seems repetitive/overly-high pitched, and poorly explained puzzles (not to mention one that is nearly broken to the point where the Devs have actually posted instruction on how to skip past it if it isn't working [I'm looking at you, Morse Code!]), and I can't recommend this game. If you do purchase it, there is a bit of a "story" during the credits, but not much.
I decided to get it to support the dev, since I've enjoyed the other "coding puzzle" games they've released in the past. Unfortunately...I got to the credits in this game in less than two days (it would have been one day if I'd not left the final puzzle until the next day). There is one post-credits chapter which introduces some new mechanics as well as a mini-game using marbles (with no undo button form moves) and a Journal that I stumbled upon while seeking the Options menu that includes an additional 30 puzzles (it's in the right-hand corner of the selection screen, if anyone's looking for it). The Tutorial Stages give you very little thinking to do, but do an okay job presenting the parts and mechanics they introduce. Unfortunately, this does mean the post-credit chapter had items that aren't clear in their use until you've bumbled in the stage itself for a while. The game is missing the "pause" option to put into a code in order to let it play until you're in the segment you want to work at. It has a copy-paste option that requires you to know that you're to hold down CTRL when moving the code to duplicate it, and it is rather painful to move code further along the string, since you are unable to move the code and drag the section for coding at the same time. If you're moving a long bit of code, it is quite easy to accidentally drop it on a code further along and have the game reset it back to its original position. TLDR: Tutorial has only one puzzle where you are not following prompts on the screen. Chapter 1 has 8 puzzles. Chapters 2-4 have 7 puzzles each. Chapter 5 has only 6 puzzles. Post-credit chapter has 11-12 puzzles. [Haven't unlocked the final slot, but suspect that's going to be a closing story segment.] Journal has 30 puzzles. Mini-game has no story elements added after 100 wins.
If you're looking to meet the Director's instructions for each episode, be ready to restart them over and over and over again. Enemies often dodge attacks you've assigned two or more cast members to execute and the episodes have multiple parts, which means even if you beat the first half, you'll likely have to redo that if you fail to meet later goals. I'd likely bump the game up to 4 starts if the dodging was fixed or at the very least an introductions of a mid-episode restart point. As it stands, it's a cute idea with unfortunately frustrating execution.
No matter how many times you start a new King/Queen, you'll have this "Ghost" forcing you not to travel "too far" from the base, forcing you to hit a glass wall, even if there's a chest full of coins just a few steps past it. To top that off, the AI for the troops is really random. At first, it seemed that every other archer/builder would go to the other side of the base, but then you'll notice that a builder on the far left will start running to the right and one on the right will run to the left, so the wall don't get built in time due to the distance traveled and the archers are all killed because they'll take "cover" behind the unfinished wall instead of the perfectly fine one a few steps behind them. I've also has islands with no Trader. Not ones where I destroyed his camp, but ones where he was never there to begin with, which assures your game will end with a lack of funds. Very bad balance, horribly AI. 1 Star.
While this game seems to have promise at first, I'm rather glad I got the thing on sale. You move in monsters of either gender and then you can hope that they'll find a mate or move in a monster of the other gender and...hope they move in together before they find a mate with worst stats... I currently have about 60% single monsters in my three story "slum", and about half of those are asking for an item that is only useful if you're part of a couple... Match that to the fact that you need to kick out the parents if the child has better stats (because there's no way to just move the grown child to their own room) and it's a wonder I managed to get any children breed at all. Honestly, that aspect of gameplay seems more than a little hopeless at this point, and I'm starting to post 3-star Quests, which means stronger monsters would be appreciated.
While the game is entertaining, it is in sore need of an update before I'd consider giving it more stars. Some way to ensure the villages don't store all the food in their house (leading to all their neighbours starving to death) as well as a total of food in the settlement that includes the food in houses is sorely, sorely required. The same for firewood. Or a way to tell them not to use coal (which they will do even if you have loads of firewood...) to allow the bloody blacksmiths a chance to use it to forge better tools. Or, hey, how about some AI improvements like--oh, I don't know--how about not having Fishermen or Gatherers starve to death when they are actively collecting food? Or even have a Labourer pick up the stacks of wood/stone they just created instead of knocking down a tree or smashing a rock and then running to the other side of the map...
On top of a display issue that makes the game unviewable when it kicks in and takes a few frames and pastes them all over the screen, even the manual doesn't make mechanics such as trading achievable!
